Metamorphosis
by Zie Ayton
Summary: Jessica Meltrow is a fifteen-year-old who has begun a climb to the top of the Duel Monsters world. She has been invited to attend the Duelist Kingdom tournament, and realizes that this may be a bit over her head. Rated T for upcoming content.
1. Prologue

_Note to Readers_

First of all, all rights to the TCG, characters, and original plot of _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ belong to Konami and Kazuki Takahashi, not me. Second, make no comment on summoning without tributes. For those of you who haven't seen Duelist Kingdom, they never used tributes. Third, don't think for a minute that I make all of Jessica's plays up off the top of my head. I designed her deck from my own cards with careful consideration of the rules and norms of the world of _Yu-Gi-Oh!_, shuffled it well, and actually drew every card she ever plays. That way I've made sure she isn't a perfect Mary-Sue character. She wins some and she loses some, all fairly. Hey, if you don't really like reading duels, sorry, but it really is relevant for this to be the beginning of the book. Keep reading, because chapter one gets better. Trust me, there _is_ a plot to this. I hope that true believers and newcomers alike***** really enjoy this fanfic.

*****Courtesy of Stan Lee on the first _Spiderman_ game for PlayStation

* * *

_**Prologue**_

"We now move on to the semi-finals of this week's Duel Monsters tournament. Jessica Meltrow and Reynold York, please take your seats!"

I couldn't believe I'd gotten so far. I'd just entered for the fun of it. And here I was, dueling this Reynold York for a chance to move on to the final round, where I could duel for a prize card and trophy. Slowly, I walked over to the table and sat across from my opponent. We cut each other's decks, then awaited the signal to start.

"Are both duelists ready?" asked the moderator. At our concurrent nods, he raised his hand and said, "Begin!"

We had predetermined by a coin toss that I got the first turn, so I drew six cards and examined my hand. In it were Skull Dog Marron, Trap Hole, Mad Sword Beast, Mysterious Puppeteer, Moon Envoy, and Solomon's Lawbook. It was a pretty good beginning draw. "I'll place one card face-down"--Trap Hole--"and set a monster in face-down defense"--Mysterious Puppeteer. "That's it for me."

Reynold grinned. "Is that really all you've got? Who makes a defensive first move? I'm shooting a little stronger!"

_Here it comes_, I thought.

"I summon my Supporter in the Shadows!"

I flipped over my trap card. "Sorry, man. Trap Hole. Your Supporter goes to the graveyard." It felt good to be the first to destroy a monster.

"Fine," he muttered as we removed our cards to the graveyard, "I'll play one face-down and end my turn. You're turn, Jessica."

_Oh, man_, I fretted as I drew my next card, the Tactical Espionage Expert. _He's got a face-down. What if it's a Trap Hole too? That could be a problem for my next move._ I silently debated over who I should put on the field and in what manner I should do it, but finally decided to hope for the best and pretend that I believed it was a bluff. "All right, then, I summon my Tactical Espionage Expert, in attack mode." I flinched involuntarily, half-expecting him to pull some crazy-evil card trick with his face-down. But after a couple seconds, I realized that my Expert was going to be okay. "Then I'll attack your life points directly!"

He shook his head. "Huh-uh. I activate Waboku. You can attack, but I don't take any damage this turn."

"Nice try, man, but the effect of my Tactical Espionage Expert makes your Waboku useless." I watched as the moderator subtracted thirteen hundred from Reynold's two thousand life points, leaving him with seven hundred. "Sorry."

"Don't be yet. I've still got a chance at winning. I summon my Doron, and equip it with the Black Pendant. It's got fourteen hundred attack points now, just enough to take out your Tactical Espionage Expert! I attack with Doron!" He placed another card face-down as the hit took me down to nineteen hundred.

He'd gotten the upper hand for a moment--the only monster in my hand at that point that could stand up to his was Mad Sword Beast, whose attack was equal to Doron's, and his Black Pendant would inflict five hundred points of direct damage to me if I destroyed his monster--but I wasn't giving up. I still had out my Mysterious Puppeteer, after all, and had the awesome defense of Skull Dog Marron in my hand. I could do this. "My go." Ookazi. "Dude, this seems way too easy. I activate Ookazi, which inflicts eight hundred points of direct damage--"

"No way. I activate my trap card, Magic Jammer. By discarding one card from my hand to the graveyard, I negate and destroy your Ookazi. I'm not going down that easily."

I shrugged. "Okay. Then I'll..." I drifted off and examined my hand,"...finish up by setting one monster in defense." If he took the bait by attacking my Skull Dog Marron, he would lose six hundred life points. I just had to hope that he'd take the bait.

As Reynold drew, his game face melted away. He seemed to be ecstatic. "Yeah! I activate Dian Keto the Cure Master, which restores my life points by one thousand!"

_Uh-oh._ That would bring him up to just two hundred points below me, and enough he could risk attacking my monsters. Either way he'd lose life points, but each choice could cost him the duel in their own ways.

"All right, I'll attack the face-down on my...left." He'd gotten my Mysterious Puppeteer, only one hundred points of damage to him, but with an effect that would give me a serious advantage. "And as I have no more cards that are of use to me at this point, I'll end my turn."

I drew Castle Walls. Knowing I had no offensive possibilities, I played it face-down and allowed him to go.

His increasingly happy face was starting to creep me out. "Ye-ah! I summon my Judge Man--"

"I get five hundred life points for that due to the effect of my Mysterious Puppeteer."

That took the edge off his high. "Right, well, I attack your Mysterious Puppeteer with my Judge Man." Reynold had prevented me from gaining any more life points from its effect, but I still had eight hundred more than him. "Your move."

My next card was Dokuroyaiba, which was pretty much useless for the time being. Then again, defense is never a bad thing. I faked a grin as best I could, hoping to pull off the bluff. "I'll set one monster face-down." With only four hundred defense points, it wasn't good, but if Reynold bought it, I could hold off for a little while until I could draw something useful. I nodded that he could go.

Reynold looked at his draw, but didn't play it. "I attack the face-down on my right with Judge Man."

I flipped over both my Skull Dog Marron and Castle Walls. "You attacked my Skull Dog, which is usually weaker, but with Castle Walls, it gains five hundred defense points, which means you take three hundred for damage." I watched as he debated whether or not to go ahead with Doron. He did, destroying my Dokuroyaiba. As he finished his turn, I drew. It was Just Desserts, which would really hit him hard. "All right! I activate Just Desserts, which takes you down by five hundred points per monster on your side of the field." He was now down by one thousand, leaving him at three hundred. _Dude, I'm actually going to win_, I thought in amazement. I set my Moon Envoy in face-down defense and ended my turn.

At his draw I began to rethink my luck. "Let's try this again. Before anything, I'll summon Ansatsu. Then I'll attack your Skull Dog Marron with Judge Man..." My Skull Dog and Moon Envoy were in the graveyard before I could even think to freak out. "Then I'll take you on directly with Ansatsu. You're down to seven hundred life points."

It was _then_ that I could think to freak out. This was getting nail-bitingly close. We were only at a difference of four hundred life points. I closed my eyes as I made what was sure to be my last draw. One way or another, this card was going to decide the match. As I brought the card in front of my face, I opened my eyes and gasped. _Hyozanryu. I'm going to win._ I twisted my expression into a different sort of surprise than I was feeling. No matter what he attacked me with, he was finished. "Well, I guess I'll just play a monster in defense," I said as dejectedly as I could manage. "Yours will be the last turn of the game."

"Awesome," Reynold said contemptuously as he made the final draw of the game. He scarcely glanced at it before looking back at me. "It's been a pretty close duel, but this is it. I'll attack your face-down with Ansatsu. Then Judge Man will finish you off!" As he declared the attack, the moderator was subtracting the twenty-two hundred from my life points.

"Hold up. You haven't seen my defense yet." The moderator's hand stopped mid-zero, and everyone watched as I flipped over my card. "Hyozanryu. This is a really special card to me. My brother spent a long time finding and saving up for it for my first deck. It's my rarest and most powerful, with a defense of _twenty-eight hundred_."

The defeat that showed on Reynold's face as the moderator erased what he'd been subtracting from my life points and instead subtracting eleven hundred from Reynold's was full of humiliation, and I kinda felt bad for him. I watched as he angrily gathered up his cards and put them in his deck case. As he prepared to leave, I walked over to him.

"Hey, Reynold," I said to his back. I held out my hand as he turned. "Awesome game. You almost had me." My hand dropped at his responding glare.

"This isn't over, Jessica Meltrow. Next time, I'll win." He held out his hand, and we shook. "Good game."


	2. Chapter One

_Another Quick Note to Readers_

If you have any better ideas as to how the whole room thing worked on the boat, be my guest. As far as I could tell, it was pretty much left to the imagination. If you think otherwise, feel free to tell me. And if you know that Kemo is spelled differently, I'd like to know as well. Thanks for reading!

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

I loved to think back to my first tournament. The finals had been so exhilarating, even though I'd finished as runner-up. It wasn't the last tournament I went to, that's for certain. My first taste of competitive dueling was more than enough to get me hooked. Local card shops and small community centers held competitions almost weekly, and I was there at every single one I could attend.

Toward the start, my parents had scolded my older brother for getting me that first Duel Monsters deck, for getting me involved in 'that ridiculous card game', but as I began to work harder in school, they started to back off. They didn't care where I had my mind as long as I was doing well in what they considered to be 'real life'. If only they'd known what had made school so much more interesting for me. I started thinking of math as battle and effects, of English characters as Duel Monsters, of science as experimental dueling, whatever I could do to keep my thoughts remotely on the subject I was studying. It worked, and they let me go to tournaments.

A little more than a year after that first one, I entered the District Tournament being hosted by Industrial Illusions, the company--run by Maximillion Pegasus--that owned Duel Monsters. _That_ had been a competition-and-a-half. It was really fun, but also really tough. It was the first time I'd been introduced to the holographic dueling arenas. It was scary at first, and a little disorienting to actually watch the monsters be destroyed, to almost be able to feel it, but I forced myself to get over it quickly. I focused on the things about it that fascinated me, and was soon zooming through the most grueling tournament I'd ever decided to enter. I was in the semi-finals, facing Weevil Underwood's crazy bug deck, and thought I had him, but he turned the tables with a Man-Eater Bug and a souped-up Cockroach Knight. I was glad to know that at least I'd been beaten by the winner of the tournament.

It was the night of the final duel between Weevil and Rex Raptor that I was presented with what was arguably the most exciting news of my life. Pegasus announced a huge tournament on his private island called Duelist Kingdom. He personally gave Weevil his invitation, and when I got home there was a letter for me in the mail, inviting me to participate as well. When my parents said I could go, it was like receiving the perfect gift on Christmas. They even helped me pack my bag with food, water, and other stuff I would probably need on the island. When the night of departure came, my parents wished me luck at home and my brother drove me to the dock. A crowd had already shown up, but it was only a small fraction of what was expected.

"Knock 'em dead, sis," Cameron told me as we headed toward the ship. He held up his fist. "Knucks?"

I punched his fist in response. "Thanks, bro. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. You got me my first cards for my thirteenth birthday, and you taught me how to play."

He grinned. "You came a long way in a year. And even further in two." My brother whistled. "A private tournament hosted by Industrial Illusions. I never thought you'd ever get this into Duel Monsters, but now that you're in, I'm counting on seeing you get pretty far into this competition. You'll be awesome, Jessie, I know it."

A man's voice resounded through the area, and I faintly caught the idea that we were boarding now. As I stood in line, I saw a scuffle with two guards and a tall blonde guy. It sounded like he'd tried to sneak in. Just as it was threatening to get dirty, a little guy walked over to them and started talking. He seemed familiar somehow, I just didn't know the 'how'. It was when he and the other guy--who I took to be a friend of his--turned around that it clicked: this little guy was Yugi Muto, the kid who'd beaten Seto Kaiba, the until-recently undisputed best duelist in the world and owner of Kaiba Corp., the biggest gaming company in existence. Not that I could call Yugi a kid, as he was my age or a little older. Some guy accompanied, "Move it, girl," with a half-shove, forcing me back to my own life and forward in the line, which had advanced several feet since I'd begun watching the fight.

It was getting to be a long wait. As I neared the front of the line, I realized that I wasn't wearing the glove that had been sent with my invitation. I searched my pockets, becoming increasingly frantic. _Seriously? I haven't even gotten on the boat and I've already lost my glove?_ I ran my hands through my long hair and groaned. Through the strawberry-blonde strands, I saw someone move up to me.

"Here, I think you dropped these." The guy who had pushed me earlier handed me my glove and the two star chips that had been in it. "Be careful. Most people aren't going to be so helpful."

I nodded and slipped on the glove. "Thanks. My name's Jessica. Who are you?"

"Antony." We shook hands. "Good to meet you. Maybe we'll see each other again on the island. And...hurry up."

I looked back to see that it was _finally_ my turn to board and got to the table at a brisk walk.

"Star chips?" asked the guy who was checking everyone's legitimacy. He waved me on and turned to the next person in line, Antony.

The ship was huge. It would probably have been easy to get lost if not for the mass of people on it. I followed them to a room full of people with mats and blankets laid out, obviously to be used as make-shift beds. Confused, I pulled out my invitation, which I had distinctly remembered saying something about a bedroom. _Now where was...ah._ "Nice," I muttered to myself. "A 'cardkey'." As I was about to escape the hubbub, something caught my eye. It was some guy and some girl, staring at me. When it seemed they had realized I noticed them, they turned away and began talking. A little disturbed, I turned and caught sight of the hand in which I had been holding my invitation card. I was still holding an invitation card, but obviously not the same one. "What the...?" There was a girl running down the hallway, brandishing a card, and I had no doubt that it was mine. "Hey! Get back here! That's mine!" The chase was epic, like something off of _Scooby Doo_. But aside from that, I eventually caught the girl's shoulder and turned her around. "What's the deal?"

"What are you talking about? You've been chasing me, and I've been running!" But there was this wicked gleam in her eyes that told me I hadn't been chasing the wrong person for the past three minutes. After a few moments, she realized that I wasn't going to be fooled and tried to break away, only to run straight into the wall. She stumbled backward, dazed by the impact. "Ow," she moaned. The girl tripped backward over her own feet and remained there, _still_ clutching my cardkey.

"Okay, seriously, just _give it back_." As my luck would have it, that's when I heard the heavy footsteps coming our way. I'm sure you could imagine what it looked like: me, standing over this tiny girl as she moaned, demanding that she give me a card. Yeah. That's what the security guys thought too.

"What's going on here?" The first guy looked from me to the thief and back. "Both of you are coming with us."

The girl's expression changed quickly. She jumped up and ran as best as she could, but didn't get far with a security guy chasing her.

After that, things were pretty quiet on the way to what I supposed would be the security room. I noticed that the girl was watching intently as we passed through a password-protected door. Inside that door was a room of TV screens with guys facing them. The one labeled _Room 03_ showed an empty hotel-like room, which I figured was mine, because the other three rooms I could find were occupied.

"Croquet, sir, we found these two girls in the hall. One of them was--"

"I know, Kemo." I guessed that this man was the head of these goons, because he would give a random order over some sort of communicator every other second. "I saw. Let me see those invitations." The guy, Croquet, took the cards from the girl and me and looked at them. "One of these belongs to the District Tournament Semi-Finalist Jessica Meltrow."

"That'd be me," the girl and I said at the same time.

My jaw dropped. "Say what? You are not! I can _prove_ that I'm Jessica Meltrow."

A sinister grin crossed the girl's face. "_I_ can prove that _I'm_ Jessica Meltrow."

"How would that be?" I asked her.

"My deck, of course. If you don't believe my deck, then you're obviously deluded." She pulled her cards out of a deck case--very similar to the one I owned--and shuffled through them.

I quickly did the same. There was one card that she couldn't possibly have, even if she had--in some creepy, stalker-ish way--been able to recreate the rest of my deck.

"See, Ookazi, my signature," she was showing the security guys, who seemed to be far more interested in the two of us trying to prove our identities than in watching what was going on around the ship.

Shaking my head, I pulled out the card she definitely couldn't have. "Nice try, but you don't have my Hyozanryu. Now really, can I _please_ have back _my_ invitation?"

The imposter's face was aghast for just a moment before she jumped straight in. "That's what happened to Hyozanryu! I've been looking for it! You _stole_ my card! My mother spent a long time to get that!"

I nearly died laughing. "Mother?" I choked out. "Dude, I got my Hyozanryu from my _brother_."

Her face turned bright red. She'd been caught. "All right, fine, you can have back your invitation. Can we go now?"

"Not so fast," said Croquet. "First, tell us what happened in the hall."

"Oh, that. Yeah, Jessica caught me, I tried to get loose, ran into the wall, and tripped over my own feet." She rephrased her question. "_Now_ can we go?"

Croquet sighed. "I suppose. We're keeping an eye on you though, young lady." He handed back the invitations to their true owners.

The thief and I were were roughly escorted--in other words, pushed--out of the room. I looked over at the curious girl. She was no older than myself, but significantly smaller. "Who are you?"

Her head jerked up. "Hmm? Me? Oh, I'm Zoe Dale. Hey, sorry about that. I probably shouldn't have tried to take the cardkey, but I was kinda wanting a room to myself. A little awkward out in that big communal place, ya know? I'm not big on it. Believe it or not, I'm kinda modest. And a little paranoid about my cards. They're in there right now 'trading', and who knows what that might mean? Just, ya know, not my kinda thing. Once I get on the island, I'll be fine, but here, with all these cameras..."

It was at that point in the conversation I decided to ditch her. Obviously she was more paranoid about _other_ people's cards than her own. Eventually, I found my way to the rooms. Just as I got there, I saw a tall blonde woman kicking Rex Raptor out of his room. I was a bit shocked, but chose not to investigate. Instead, I walked up to room three. There was a locked handle, but no keyhole or cardslot, and apparently no scanner of any sort either. "What the...?" I muttered. I tried for several minutes to figure out how to unlock the door, but nothing seemed to work.

"Might I try?" came a guy's voice from behind me. I turned to see Antony watching me, one eyebrow raised. I handed him the card and watched as he swiped it between the door and frame, then pushed it open. "Here," he said as he held out my cardkey, which I took.

"Oh." I walked in, then faced him. "Thanks a lot. I would've been out there for a while."

He nodded. "Good night. I'd prepare for tomorrow morning if I were you." Antony walked away, back toward the big room.

What Zoe had said interested me. Whatever she may have thought about card trading was of little concern to myself, and I was personally very interested to see if I might be able to find something useful for my deck. After dropping my bag onto the bed and stuffing my cardkey into my pocket, I hurried out to the 'communal place' to see what I could find. The room was jam-packed with chattering people swapping cards and polishing up their dueling strategies. I idled around, occasionally catching enough of a strategy conversation to make me consider taking them on toward the beginning of the tournament. Then I saw them again, the two who had stared at me when I had walked in the first time. They were staring again, only this time they were whispering to each other as they watched my every move. Getting a little creeped out, I decided to get some fresh air to clear my head.

On the deck, I leaned against the railing and looked down at the ocean we were passing through. That was regrettable. I stepped back, slightly nauseous from an all-too-real image of falling into the dark water. My imagination was bad like that: if anyone decided to start describing an injury or scenario, I could imagine the pain or fear, and it would make me sick and slightly twitchy. Even after getting away from the rail, the salty air was too much of a stimulant to my senses. I turned to walk back inside and nearly ran into a guy with long white hair.

"Sorry," he said genially--in an upper-class, British accent--before stepping aside to allow me in.

"It was my fault. And thanks." My head turned involuntarily to my right, and I could have sworn I saw two people, a guy and a girl, neither of which I recognized, hiding among the storage crates. I shut my eyes and shook my head, but when I looked back, they were gone. I figured that the sea air was too much for my city-adapted head and hurried back into my room. Or at least I tried to. When I pushed on the door after I'd run the cardkey between it and frame, just as Antony had, it wouldn't budge. I tried several times before realizing that I was swiping it upside-down. So _not_ my night. I turned it over and was in the first time. Figuring I'd need to be reminded to wake up, I picked up the alarm clock beside the bed to set it. There were no buttons on it whatsoever, but there was a bell symbol in the upper left-hand corner, which I inferred to mean that it was preset. Without even bothering to change out of my jeans and t-shirt, I laid down to sleep.

---

I sat up suddenly to an exceptionally annoying buzzing sound. For a moment, I was slightly disoriented, but then recalled where I was. I hit the clock when it was apparent that it wasn't going to turn off, and it stopped--I'd either broken it or that was how it worked. Whichever it was didn't matter me, as long as the stupid thing was shut up. I caught the time on it--six o'clock in the morning--and groaned. I hoped there was a good reason for it going off so early. I grabbed the comb out of my bag and quickly pulled it through my hair in front of the mirror, put it back, and slung the bag over my shoulder before heading out of my room. I followed the sounds of footsteps and murmurs to the deck. It seemed we had arrived at the island.


	3. Chapter Two

_Note_

There is no note this time! Thanks for reading Metamorphosis!

* * *

**_Chapter Two_**

The island was huge. It was apparent that it was also very diverse: I could see forests, clearings, and, of course, the ocean. Most prominent, located at the top of a mountain, was Pegasus's castle. It was a marvelous thing, gigantic, with what must have been a thousand stairs leading up to it. It was enough to get me pumped up, even so early in the morning. The crowd buzzed with excitement as the gangplank was placed and two security guys walked down it, probably to check legitimacy one more time. I merged into the semi-line that had formed and exited the ship with everyone else.

Even though I had only spent a night at sea, it was good to be on dry land again. I was way more comfortable knowing that I wasn't going to sink into the ground beneath my feet. I looked around to gauge what other duelists thought of this, and saw some who looked more than a little nervous and some who were raring to go. I guess that in my observation, I missed something, because they started a pilgrimage toward the castle. I figured it was best to follow, and was soon beginning the long walk up the stairs. At that time, those stairs seemed to be the most difficult thing I would encounter. There were so many, and several times I nearly tripped, over other people's feet and my own.

After what seemed like hours, I was finally to the top, which was a large plateau. I found that I had actually come up the stairs pretty quickly, as what seemed to be more than half of the duelists from the ship came trekking up after I had made it. The stairs had made it obvious who had stamina and who didn't, and I took note of the didn'ts. Any disadvantages I could find in people would be useful for later reference.

Eventually, it looked like everyone had arrived. I faintly heard someone making an announcement, and looked up just in time to see Pegasus stepping out onto a balcony. I caught the gist of his speech--something about new rules we needed to be prepared for--but my mind was already drifting away, into the forests, where I could picture battling loads of other duelists, winning the ten star chips to fill up my glove, defeating Pegasus himself, returning home King of Games. Or maybe Queen of Games. Who knew how that worked, anyway?

Someone bumped into me as they headed back down the stairs, almost knocking me to my feet. Apparently Pegasus was done and we were free to roam. I turned and started the journey, glad that at least gravity was on my side this time. That didn't turn out to be such a good thing. About halfway down, I was just looking at the trees, wondering what sort of wildlife Pegasus allowed on the island, if any. I hadn't seen anything, not even a grasshopper, since I'd arrived, which sort of bugged--ha ha--me. As I considered what his reasons behind sterilizing an entire island might be, my right foot went out a little too far and I missed a step. My legs didn't react in time, so my right knee bent, sending me face-first down the stairs. I managed to cover my head before I hit, so I saved at least that much of me, but couldn't control any other aspect of my fall. I probably went about thirty steps before I came to an abrupt stop. I opened my eyes, but everything was spinning, making me really dizzy, so I shut them again before I got nauseated. When I was oriented enough to be fairly sure of which way was up and which way was down, I tried opening my eyes again. This time the world was in pretty sharp focus, and I was able to sit up and catch a deep breath.

"Are you all right?" I whipped my head around--bad idea--to find the speaker; it was Antony, sitting on the next step up and watching me with concern. "You took a pretty steep fall."

"I'll be good," I replied. "How'd I stop?"

His eyebrows raised. "I'll use the fall as an excuse for your lack of reasoning. I caught you."

"Oh. Duh." I put my head in my hands and shook it. "Thanks. I could have gotten off pretty badly if you hadn't."

"Well, you're not dead, which I'm sure is better off than you could be, but you look a fright."

I lifted my head and examined what of myself I could. My hair was tangled, my jeans were ripped, and I had a couple cuts and soon-to-be bruises. I reached behind me for my bag so I could take out my comb, but grasped only air, and freaked out. "Where is it? Where's my--"

Antony handed me the bag. "I'm afraid you may be down by some food and water."

He was right: several bags of food had burst and a bottle of water had broken, soaking everything. It was a complete mess. Despite that, I dried my comb off with my shirt and pulled it through my hair as best I could. When I finished with that, I returned to my bag. "Ah man. Me and my stupid imagination. Can't keep my mind in the here and now to save my life. This is great, just great..."

"It's not like it's beyond repair. Here," he said as he stood and held out a hand for me to take, "let's get off these stairs and onto flat ground." Antony and I--mostly I--carefully made our way down the last half of the steps, me sullenly toting my dripping backpack. Once we were at the bottom, he took the bag and looked at it. "Like I said, this isn't going to kill you. You just need to wash it out and dry it. You'll be down by a few supplies, but you'll be fine in the long run. I'll help you find a safe place to clean it." As we walked, I took in his appearance for the first time. He was very tall and obviously took pretty good care of himself. His sandy hair was combed straight and his eyes were a light shade of blue-green. He wore khakis and an unbuttoned plaid dress shirt over a white undershirt. I concluded that he must have come from an upper middle-class to lower upper-class family. His manners certainly seemed to show it.

We eventually came to a place where the land met the ocean. I took my bag, dumped everything onto the grass a few feet from the bank, and dunked it into the water.

Antony stood by, probably half-expecting me to fall in.

That set me off a bit. It's not like I was a klutz. Anyone could have fallen down those stairs. I just happened to be the one with a short enough attention span to actually do it. I shook my head as I dumped the last bagful of water back into the ocean. "This will take forever to dry out."

"At least it's clean," Antony pointed out. "You may want to wash off some of the other stuff that was in there as well. That sleeping bag doesn't look too good." He pointed to the bedroll, which was covered in soggy chips.

I growled. "If you think it's so important, do it yourself!"

He was genuinely taken aback. Apparently he was really just trying to be helpful. It annoyed me to a certain extent, but at least he was proving himself to be a good guy.

I let out a deep breath before speaking again. "Look, I'm just a little worked up over this. I'm sorry. Would you please find something I can burn so I can get all this dried?" He nodded and left, leaving me to sit by the water and do my best to clean off the nearly-ruined sleeping bag. It didn't turn out to be as hard as I'd thought. I guess the salt in the water may have somehow helped dissolve the chips or something. Whatever the case, it was clean long before I expected Antony to return. Everything else, I decided, would be best left alone until they had dried. Done with the second most annoying part of my day, I looked over myself, using the water--which was oddly calm--as a mirror. Excluding the cuts and small bruises, everything was okay. Except for my jeans. I guess the steps must have been really rough, or maybe my fall had just been that fast and hard, because there were several rips up to my knees. "Mom's gonna kill me," I muttered. Whatever Antony wanted to say about the rest of my stuff, these were beyond repair. When I stood, the tears got bigger, and I knew that soon they would be long enough for me to trip on. That was something I _definitely_ didn't need. I knew I only had one solution, but I really didn't want to do it. I'd be dead for sure. But I really wanted to stay on the island, and that was the one thing that surpassed the fear of my mom. I sat back on the ground and tore the jeans at their uppermost rips, which were thankfully just at the knees. I considered what to do with the now useless pieces of denim, and was doing so as Antony returned with enough wood to make a small fire that would hopefully burn long enough to get all my stuff dry.

"I got...what happened to your jeans?" He saw the other halves of the legs. "Oh. They _were_ in pretty bad shape, I suppose, but surely you could have fixed them?" I think the withering look I gave him shut him up, because he set the wood down carefully beneath a fairly low tree branch in what I guessed was a proper fire-making layout. Whether it was or not, when he flicked the lighter he'd pulled from his pocket--never really figured out why he had that to begin with--it caught. "There. Do you think you can get the backpack and sleeping bag hung on this branch?" After several futile attempts at hanging them proved that I couldn't, he slipped the backpack on by the straps and secured the two ends of the sleeping bag to the branch. "That _should_ work. The straps of the bag won't be particularly comfortable for a while, but they'll dry out in time."

I could tell this was going to take a while. I figured there was no way everything would be dry before sundown, so I sat with my back against a tree and began mentally planning what I would do tomorrow.

Antony hung around. Why, I didn't know at the time. I really didn't know why he even cared to be helping me dry off all my stuff. Whatever his reasons, I was fine with it for the time being.

I lasted about five minutes before getting twitchy from the silence and still. I stood and began pacing, but that only relieved the still. There was still complete silence, and I couldn't stand it. Someone had to say something, and it seemed that Antony would not speak unless spoken to; he was staring off into the distance. My mouth opened and closed several times before I finally thought of something to say. "Why were you invited?"

Antony's head turned, and from the expression on his face, I knew my wording had been off. "Pardon? Why was I invited where? Here? I suppose for the same reason as you and everyone else: I'm a duelist." It was obvious he had a pretty good idea of what I meant and that he was just being sarcastic. So much for those upper-class manners. I suppose my resulting glare made Antony wish he hadn't finished his answer. "Sorry, I couldn't help it. That _was_ a terribly worded question, and--"

"How many Duel Monsters tournaments have you been to before this one?" _That_ could hardly be misunderstood.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Quite a few, I suppose. I've been in competitive dueling for three years now."

"Close to home?"

"Not exactly. It's really been a fifty-fifty split. I've gone several hours just to compete in higher ranked tournaments. Nothing big really ever happens at home. What about yourself?" He seemed genuinely interested to hear about my--slightly shorter--competitive dueling career, and we soon became engaged in quite a long conversation about ourselves. I learned that Antony was seventeen; he was taking time off his senior year to take part in Duelist Kingdom. He lived with his dad, step mom, and three younger sisters, who he told me a lot about. The youngest two were seven-year-old twins named Andrea and Anita--troublemakers with sweet faces. They were his step mom's daughters from her previous marriage. The oldest was Lucinda, thirteen years old and his real sister. She hadn't really had anyone to take care of her when she was younger, so Antony had been her companion from the time she was about five. After a long description of her, he told me that Lucinda had gone to live with their mom five months ago after a traumatizing bullying incident at school. He'd really picked up on tournaments after that.

In return, I told him about my parents and my older brother Cameron. When I was done, I looked into the sky, where the sun was slowly dipping, about half of the way to the horizon. I looked at the ground to see that the firewood was no longer anything more than cinders. "You think my stuff is dry?" Once Antony had gotten the two things down, I rolled up the sleeping bag and stuffed it into my backpack. I returned everything else one-by-one, scraping each item off before putting it in. I slung one--still damp--strap over my shoulder and turned to Antony. "Thanks. There's still a few more hours of sunlight. May as well see who's interested in dueling while we can still see them."

I guess that it was by unspoken consent that we were now traveling together, because Antony walked along beside me. "I'd tie my shoes if I were you," he said after a moment of walking.

With a wry smile, I bent down and did so. It looked like I had a big brother to take care of me while I was on the island.


End file.
